Crossfire (manga)

Crossfire
Genre	Adventure, black comedy
Manga
Written by	Kouta Hirano
Published by	Shōnen Gahosha
English publisher	Dark Horse Comics
Demographic	Seinen
Magazine	Young King Ours
Volumes	3
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Crossfire refers to a three-chapter series by Kouta Hirano, who is best known as the author of Hellsing, where it appeared in the first three tankoubon. The stories focus on the fictional Vatican Section XIII, or the Iscariot Organisation. The first three volumes of Hellsing - Hirano Kouta's most famous work - contains Crossfire at the end as an extra.

Plot

Crossfire follows Heinkel Wolfe and Yumie Takagi, a Catholic nun and an assassin who work for the Iscariot organization. They call themselves "earthly agents of divine punishment". Crossfire also has cameos by Alexander Anderson. Also present is Enrico Maxwell, the head of Iscariot, but in Crossfire, he has glasses and his hair is not as slicked back as in Hellsing, as well as an arms dealer who resembles Walter C. Dornez.

Across the three chapters, Heinkel and Yumie face a variety of opposition, including Islamic terrorists, communist revolutionaries, and finally, an obscure pagan cult. None of these pose any real threat to them.

Main characters

Heinkel Wolfe (ハインケル・ウーフー, Hainkeru Ūfū^?)

The unofficial leader of the duo, Heinkel Wolfe is often the lead attacker. Technically, Wolfe is a nun, but dresses in the manner of a priest, but acts neither like a woman nor a man. She can be calm and level-headed, although still a fanatical Catholic. Her main weapon is a modified .50 caliber Desert Eagle Semi-automatic pistol.

Yumie Takagi (高木 由美江, Takagi Yumie^?), and Yumiko Takagi (高木 由美子, Takagi Yumiko^?)

Yumiko Takagi is Wolfe's partner, although from first glance, it is hard to imagine this gentle, violence-hating Japanese girl would be part of a Catholic hunter organization. However, Yumiko has a split-personality. Her other personality, Yumie, is an ultra-violent katana-wielding killer whose devotion to the Catholic Church approaches that of zealotry. As for the style of swordcraft Yumie practices, it is referred to as tougen battou jai ryuu, a sword discipline which the sword is rapidly drawn from its scabbard, often at a speed too fast for opponents to react. But how Yumie learned this while being part of Yumiko is unknown.

The two personalities are easy to point out: Yumiko wears eyeglasses, while Yumie does not. Yumiko is also aware of Yumie's presence, but she would like to see Yumie "sleep" instead of waking her... because of the violence she can cause.

Enrico Maxwell's character design is significantly different in Crossfire in comparison to Hellsing. Just after the main story in volume 2 Hirano states that he altered it so that he didn't resemble Integra too much. Due to this it is declared non canon. Crossfire originally was to be animated in Hellsing Ova series but the producers forgot about it so they turned it into a drama CD for OVa's 6 and 7.